Navigation

Today's route:
In International Falls, Smokey Bear Park is at the corner
of 3rd Street and 6th Avenue, a few blocks from the border. The thermometer
and Smokey Bear are easy to spot. The Spot Firehouse Restaurant & Lounge is
located at 18th street & highway 53.

Head southwest down Hwy. 71 for 10 miles to the "Y" intersection with Hwy.
11 at Pelland Junction. At the "Y" bar on the left is Willie the Worm.
Continue south on 71 for 30 miles to Big Falls... Uncle Dan Campbell
is on the left side of the road. Go 48 miles further down 71 to the town of
Blackduck. One of the duck statues is on main street; the other two
are south of town in a park and in front of a motel.

Continue 25 miles SW on 71 to Bemidji, a decent sized town. Head into town
on Hwy. 197 and stay to the right, heading south along the lake. The Bunyan
attractions are grouped in one spot.

Continue south on 71 for 15 miles then turn east on Rt. 200 for 3 or 4 miles.
Turn south on Rt. 64 for 16 miles, then turn right onto 34. Akeley is where
you can find a big Bunyan photo op and museum. Head
SW another 6 miles to Nevis. The fish is in a park on Main Street.

Continue on 34 into Park Rapids, where you'll find a leaping stag, a bear
and other interesting statues. Pick up Hwy. 71 again, heading south out of
town, and go 12 miles to Menahga, Home of St. Urho. In Menahga, head
due west on 87 for 33 miles to the far side of Frazee and the World's Largest
Turkey. It's on Rte 29 off Hwy. 10. Turkey is on a hilltop, S side of
town, in Lions Park

Stay on 87 heading southwest towards Vergas an another Loon. Continue on 87,
and turn south onto Hwy. 59 to Pelican Rapids, and the World's Largest
Pelican. There is a giant Prairie Chicken in nearby Rothsay, and
an Otter in Fergus Falls.

Now take I-94 southeast for 50 miles to Alexandria, home of Big Ole,
and the Kensington Runestone Museum. Take Exit 103, go north on Broadway.
At the far end of town, the Viking stands in the middle of the street in front
of the Runestone Museum. The giant replica Runestone is at E. 3rd St./Hwy.
27, a couple miles outside of town

Back on I-94, head to Exit 127, south on Hwy. 71 to Belgrade. The Crow
Pavilion is on the right. Go 25 miles south if you want a photo of the
golden Indian in Willmar. On the courthouse lawn, Becker Ave. & 5th
St. Head east on Hwy. 12 for 31 miles to Darwin's World's Largest Twine
Ball. Beneath the water tower. There's a fiberglass chicken in Delano
further east on Hwy. 12.

Finish the evening at the Mall of America, in Bloomington south of
Minneapolis, off I-494 at Exits 2A and 2B, Cedar Ave. (Hwy. 77) exit. Three
big Indians stand nearby at the Thunderbird Hotel, 2201 East 78th Street.

International Falls to Minneapolis, Minnesota

There
is an eerie continuum of giant statues down the center of Minnesota --
town-sponsored photo ops created solely to lure tourists. Elsewhere we've
been visiting big cows and floating loons, but today is justifiably dubbed
"Statue Day."

It's also the only day that rain and erratic weather strikes...

First stop is the Big
Thermometer and Smokey the Bear in International Falls. We looked at them
last night, before scooting across the border in the foolish belief that Canada
would have a nice restaurant. Little did we realize that the only bridge between
International Falls and our neighbor to the north shares its roadbed with
a set of busy, ungated freight train tracks! The dash across the border is
one of timing, luck, and wide-eyed over-the-shoulder glances, more like sneaking
into El Paso than driving out of Minnesota. A half-hour of fruitless travel
in Canada, with its hypnotic, blinking traffic lights and incomprehensible
metric road signs, convinces us to come home -- train or no train --
and a decent meal of American food in a restaurant that tries to convince
diners it's actually a firehouse. The Spot Firehouse is filled with
antique fire extinguishers, nozzles and firefighting memorabilia, good old
USA dining ambiance.

Willie
the Worm Man

Pelland Junction, Minnesota

Ten
miles southeast of International Falls stands an obscure chainsaw sculpture
known as Willie the Worm-Man.
He's perched on a big fishhook next to the "Y" bar in Pelland Junction, with
a weird leer on his wriggly face. Heading south on 71, we encounter the even
more obscure Big Dan Campbell statue in Big Falls, and three separate black
duck tributes in Blackduck.

Paul Bunyan Territories

Bemidji, Minnesota

Possibly the oldest Bunyan shrine
in this Bunyan-thick land is in the town of Bemidji (also the hometown of
Jane Russell). Broad-shouldered and boxy,
like Pierre the Voyageur that we saw back in Two Harbors, this 18-foot tall,
2.5 ton Paul was built in January 1937 by sun-starved Bemidjians. A companion
Babe the Blue Ox on wheels was trucked around to Minnesota carnivals for a
few years before joining Paul permanently in 1939. The spot where they stand
on the shore of Bemidji Lake is supposedly Bunyan's birthplace.

World's Largest Tiger Muskie

Nevis, Minnesota

Continuing on the colossi trail, we find the big Tiger Muskie.
Parked under a roof, this cedar and redwood statue was built in 1950 and
is dedicated
to
tourists who spend their vacations in Minnesota. The statue requires regular
upkeep, and a sign in the mouth discourages the obvious photo opportunity...

There are more statues sprinkled around Park Rapids, where we turn south
again. In Menahga we come across our second St. Urho statue -- much more photogenic
than the one in Finland -- standing proudly, grasshopper skewered on his lethal
pitchfork. [Read the latest on St. Urho]

Fowl Weather

Our biggest disappointment of "Statue Day," aside from the spotty weather,
is that Big Tom, World's Largest Turkey, is still missing from Frazee.
He was completely incinerated in a horrible fire only a month earlier [read
the complete, gruesome
report], but a town official promised us a replacement would be in place
for our visit. It isn't, and all we find is a misshapen, paper mache
egg on Tom's scorched pedestal. As a consolation, we visit other big birds
nearby: the Big Loon in Vergas, the next town over, and the World's
Largest Pelican in downtown Pelican Rapids. [Read the more
about the Pelican.]

Viking
Attractions

Alexandria, Minnesota

Alexandria claims to be "the birthplace of America" -- a
strange claim for a town in central Minnesota -- based on the cryptic
carvings on its celebrated Runestone (one of several
around the US). Giant swords and helmets-with-horns are everywhere here;
this town was into heavy metal imagery long before it was hip. The photo
ops
are Big Ole, a towering Viking standing in the center of Broadway; and a Viking
long ship photo op prop with room for the whole family.

The Kensington Runestone Museum takes itself more seriously. Its
centerpiece is a 200-pound slab of graywacke stone, "placed in Douglas County
by the Vikings in 1362." The runic inscription reportedly describes an expedition
made to the area by 8 Goths and 22 Norwegians. The story goes that it was
found under the roots of an aspen tree by Olaf Ohman, a Swedish immigrant
farmer, in 1898 -- "Minnesota's most famous and controversial artifact."

A giant replica Runestone sits a few miles outside of town on Hwy.
27: 25 feet tall, made of granite, erected by the Alexandria Kiwanis in 1951.
It traveled to the 1964 New York World's Fair in a miniature replica Viking
dragon boat on the back of a flatbed truck.

Crow Centennial Boondoggle

Belgrade, Minnesota

"AAWWRRR! AWWWWR! Welcome to Crow Country!" A huge black crow sits atop a
31-foot-long branch, itself atop a 25-foot-tall cement pedestal. Eighteen
feet tall -- in all, 43 feet high -- this biggest of all birds has
an eerie, pagan idol quality, particularly since it's so massive, so well-done,
and so out in the middle of nowhere. Inside the crow's base is a tiny self-guided
museum. Only a few displays of bleached, dusty detritus from the 1988 Centennial
celebration survive: Belgrade T-shirts, commemorative Frisbees, and beverage
insulators. Push a button and a prerecorded narration tells you more than
you'd ever want to know about the crow and the county. The voice excuses all
of this weirdness because crows, like the humans who admire them, are "resourceful"
and "mate for life and remain close to their families."

Obligatory Twine Ball Visit

Darwin, Minnesota

The World's Largest Twine
Ball Rolled By One Man is enclosed in a Plexiglas and wood gazebo in
this tiny town, the Plexiglas providing the usual challenges to flash photography.
A blue mailbox out front reads: "The World's Largest Twine Ball," leaving
out the clarifying coda (since added). It's lost more of its ball shape since
last we visited, though maybe not, since our previous views were of the ball
obscured in a Plexiglas-fronted metal shed. There's a souvenir stand (closed)
and a nearby house that will sell Ball memorabilia if you knock on the door.

A gray-haired local woman approaches us. "Are you here to see our Twine
ball? You know, Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song about it. He's even been here
to visit." A staunch Darwinian, she proudly announces, unprompted, that this
twine ball was rolled by "ONE man" -- unlike a certain other, larger twine
ball in another state that is apparently regularly added-to by various townspeople.
"We don't have much of a town left, but the twine ball really draws 'em in."

Mall of America

Bloomington, Minnesota

The Mall's ten-story parking garage appears as a twinkly,
magical castle at night, particularly after two days of looking at nothing
but trees and
water.
The Mall itself is essentially four high-rise wing malls built around
a central
core -- Camp Snoopy -- which features a virtual reality ride (giant
worms erupt from an alien planet surface and try to eat your star fighter),
a DEADLY log flume, the Ripsaw roller coaster, and The Mighty Axe.

The
Mighty Axe is impressive, a Bunyan-sized cleaver that swoops in a ten-story
tall arc, vertically spinning a busload of 40+ horizontally-tumbling passengers
around and around. Fat Tuesday (fine dining) offers an upper-floor view of
the proceedings; do the smart thing and eat AFTER you ride. A display of chainsaw-carved
"Northwoods Creatures" -- the Mall's concession to Minnesota folklore
-- lines the walls, and includes a Hodag (Rhinelander, WI's mascot,
"the most fearsome of all") and something called a Splinter Cat. The Mall
of America aquarium is featuring sharks when we visit; according to the guy
at Alligator Alley (Wisconsin Dells) they were going to euthanize their much-ballyhooed
previous attraction, an albino alligator, when it became old news,
but he saved it.

We speculate there are probably five or six "Mall of America orphans"
each year. Exhausted moms pay for an $18.95 all-day Camp Snoopy pass, leave
the little cruncher, then skip town.

The Mall of America may be the only mall (for now) with its own self-referential
gift shop and souvenirs. Kids who grow up in Minneapolis must experience a
lifetime of disappointment when they move to places with normal malls.